Yasser Quesada: "I'm going for the Cuban Chess Title"

This Monday, January 15th begins the semifinal stage of the national men's chess championship. Villa Clara will have two representatives in Havana: MI Diasmany Otero and GM Yasser Quesada, which reappears in the Cuban science game tournaments.

About the tournament and his objectives, we talked with Quesada, a 25-year-old young teacher, who has the sixth best ELO in the country and is number one in the joust: 2543 points.

LM: How does Yasser Quesada get ready for this semifinal?

YQ: The truth is that I arrived very well prepared for the semifinals; in addition my chess has improved a lot, because I have matured as a player. My brother Yuniesky has helped me a lot in that.

LM: I know he was recently playing in Mexico and Nicaragua.

YQ: Yes, and I did very well because I improved my ELO a lot, which was 2505 and now it's 2543. In Nicaragua I won the traditional Joaquin Hurtado tournament, with 8 lines of 9.

LM: What does it mean that you have matured as a player?

YQ: The issue is that I have improved my game in several aspects of chess; I do not always play the same thing and now I dedicate much more time to studying the three phases of the game.

LM: What are your aspirations in the semifinals?

YQ: The first thing is to qualify for the finals of February. The semifinal gives four places and I hope to get one of them. Then, at the decisive phase, I will go to take everything, I go for the title, I go for a place within the Cuba team to the Olympiad and later I get to the 2600 points in my ELO.

LM: Aren’t your goals kind of too ambitious, considering that you do not play a final since 2014?

YQ: I do not think so, because I know my rivals and because I am in a great moment, I have to take advantage of it. I know that neither the semifinals nor the finals will be easy, because of the tremendous level of chess in Cuba, but I am optimistic and I hope to achieve those goals.